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Module 2

DDO Release Notes: The Twilight Forge

Welcome to the Archival Release Notes for Dungeons & Dragons Online! These release notes were posted July 12th, 2006.

Of Special Note

New Content

Long ago, the Restless Isles were a chain of peaks linked by a labyrinth of tunnels and caverns. This natural fortress was transformed into a war foundry by the ancient lords of Dal Quor in their battle against the giants of Xen'drik. Known as the 'Twilight Forge,' this armory created warforged and other weapons for the cataclysmic war that ultimately ended in defeat for the quori and ruin for the giants. Thousands of years have passed since then, and the land has been inundated with water from the Thunder Sea. Only the tops of the peaks remain above sea level, but quori-reinforced tunnels continue to link the islands in this mysterious chain. Although the quori have been gone for 40,000 years, their strange architecture survives. So do the wildmen – a race of warped humanoids known nowhere else in Eberron, and presumed to have evolved from servants that the quori left behind. Visit Baudry Cartamon’s Shipping Warehouse, Ghola Fan’s Compound, The Shrieking Mines, and The Twilight Forge. Only a powerful party will survive the challenges of the Restless Isles!

New Race: Drow

Gain enough favor in the new Patron System (see below for more detail) and you will be able to unlock a new playable race, the Drow. This powerful race features the following:

Magical Defense: Drow are immune to magic sleep effects, and gain a +2 saving throw bonus against Enchantment spells and an additional +2 Will save bonus against spells and spell-like effects. Finally, Drow characters begin play with Spell Resistance 11, and this resistance can be increased as the Drow gains levels.

New Game Systems

Stormreach now has mail!

The Couriers of House Orien, masters of transport and delivery, have begun a new effort to make inroads into the wealth held by Xen’drik and Stormreach. To that end, they have placed enchanted delivery devices throughout the city to allow citizens, for a small fee, to transport items quickly over short distances. Send letters! Send items! Send currency! Mailboxes can now be found in all city wards.

Patron System / Adventure Compendium

We are proud to introduce a new system through which players gain favor with different groups by completing specific adventures. Favor allows you access to special items and rewards; the higher your favor, the greater the rewards. This will be a dynamic system – as DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE™: Stormreach™ grows, the Patron system will grow, offering the chance for new and better rewards as well as greater ties and involvement within the various patron groups. Most adventures in the game have been assigned a patron organization. By completing an adventure you gain favor with the affiliated patron group. The amount of favor each completed adventure grants you is determined by the Challenge Rating (level), length, and difficulty setting (Normal, Hard, Elite etc.) of that adventure. When you have gained enough favor with a particular group you will gain a new rank (i.e., “Friendly” or “Honored”) and a corresponding reward (for example, gaining favor with House Kundarak will allow you to earn additional bank space and gaining favor with the Coin Lords will give you access to expanded inventory slots). Representatives from each of the patron groups will be responsible for giving out new ranks and the accompanying rewards. These Representatives can be found in various locations throughout Stormreach. When you have earned a new rank with a Patron organization, a congratulatory letter will be sent to your mailbox, inviting you to visit the Patron’s representative for your reward. You will be able to track your favor with each of the Patrons’ organizations with a new UI element called the Adventure Compendium. The Patron system is retroactive and will take into account all of the adventures you have completed up to this point. Many of you will find that you can already visit some of the Patron’s representatives to gain your ranks and rewards.

Spell Swapping for Sorcerers and Bards

Sorcerers and bards can now exchange spells! All sorcerer and bard trainers will have a new option added to their dialogue box: “I would like to exchange one of my spells for a different one.” Selecting this option brings up the Spell Exchange panel. Spell exchange works in the same way as the Action Point system - select the spell you would like to get rid of on the left, and select the desired spell on the right. There is a cash price for each spell swap and you can only swap a spell for another spell of the same level. Additionally you can only swap spells once every three days.

Improved LFG Functionality

Looking for a group is now easier than ever. Thanks to your suggestions, we have added a number of new features to make finding teammates easy and get you into the dungeons as quickly as possible.

General

If you complete an adventure on "hard", it will unlock "elite" regardless of whether you had previously unlocked hard (this is only possible if you grouped with someone else who has already unlocked "hard").

Rank is now a value which more closely represents a players total level, rather than how far a player has progressed through their current level. A player's rank value no longer starts at zero after each new level, but rather continues to include the rank of the previous level.The following table shows how ranks are now calculated:

Level Completion %

Level

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Level 1

0

1

2

3

4

Level 2

5

6

7

8

9

Level 3

10

11

12

13

14

...

Level 10

45

46

47

48

49

When you die your soulstone will now drop directly at your feet.

The death penalty has been increased for level 9 and 10 characters.

More AI and pathing improvements.

Fixed a number of broken traps.

Fixed over 100 stuck points throughout the world.

We have begun adding new emotes into the game! Your hunger pains are over – you can now /eat!

The barbers of Stormreach have learned a few new hairdos! Unfortunately these new hairstyles are only available at character generation.

You can now log out while incapacitated.

You can no longer be both exhausted and fatigued; exhaustion will remove and block fatigue.

Owing to their construct nature, Warforged should now find that they are able to hold their breath under water significantly longer than they could before.

Fixed a display issue where players wearing a +Con item or under the effect of a +Con spell during level advancement saw an incorrect increase to hit points.

Human males run more “manly”.

Corrected many incorrect “danger alerts.”

You can no longer hear the sounds of dead party members running along with you.

Made adjustments, improvements, and corrections to the map/mapnotes.

Many tooltips, quest texts, item descriptions, and spell descriptions have been rewritten for clarity.

Fixed a number of incorrect Focus Orb images.

Game Performance

Elimination of various client crashes.

Improved graphics performance in several dungeons and taverns.

Further improved bandwidth consumption to improve playability for modem users.

Landscape shadows have been added! Shadows on landscape terrain (cast from trees, rocks and architecture) are now visible. The graphics quality has increased for High or Very High detail levels. There should be no additional performance overhead for this feature.

Pressing the "Default" button at the bottom of the options panel was incorrectly setting Engine Speed to "Very Low". It now correctly sets it to "Very High".

Xbox 360 controllers are more responsive to player input. In particular, players will now be able to run at full speed.

UI Improvements

Guild Names are now visible under player names (can be toggled on/off).

Party Member names can be distinguished from other player names by color.

Hostile monsters names now appear in a configurable color (default red) and Friendly or Neutral monster’s names look like NPCs names rather than hostile monster’s names.

The colors for names of party members, other players, NPCs, and monsters can be altered.

Displayed damage values for sneak attacks and critical hits now show in a distinctive fashion.

The display for your party member’s HP/SP bars refreshes more frequently.

The alive/incapacitated/dead state of party members (as shown by the color of the party member’s name in the party UI) update properly even when they are far from you (including other instances).

A "usurp" button has been added to the Guild UI. This button will appear on the Guild Successor's Guild UI once the Guild Leader has not logged in for 3 weeks. Pressing the button will auto-promote the Guild Successor to Guild Leader. We highly recommend that all guilds choose a successor, so that your guild will not be left without a guild leader.

The Guild UI has an invite player to group button (once again).

There is now an option to ignore all guild invites.

Guild invites from squelched players will be ignored.

The correct error message displays if a guild invitation expires.

You can now enter up to 256 characters into the chat bar before having to start a new line.

You can turn loot messages on and off.

“Accept Choice” is not mapped to the number pad enter key by default. If you have re-mapped this key you will need to change the setting if you wish to unmap it. "Accept Choice" is intended to answer "yes" to dialogs in the game. This change prevents players from accidentally releasing their body when they did not wish to.

The “/help alias” description of the /alias command has been updated to properly reflect /alias’ capabilities.

When you hover over the icon for items in your inventory, shops, chests, and reward UI, you now receive the examination information in a tooltip. This is in addition to the current method of examination (using the "z" key or the magnifying glass on the focus orb).

The effect descriptions are now displayed directly upon examination, you no longer need to hover over the effect names to get the descriptions from a tooltip.

When dragging items over the equipment slots in your inventory, they will only highlight if the slot is compatible with the item. In addition, whenever you select an item, all of the compatible inventory slots are highlighted.

The Friends UI tool tip mistakenly implied the columns could be sorted. They can't. The tooltip has been removed.

The "Play this Character" button in character generation has been renamed to "Create this Character" to more accurately describe what the button does.

The latency meter is now located in the main menu bar. Also, the latency meter no longer wants to always remain on top.

If you die from constitution damage you will no longer have an ability damage icon appear on your screen after you have resurrected.

Items

All newbie potions awarded or found in the tutorial area (plus the potions characters begin life with) are Heal Light Wounds potions that work equally well on Warforged and flesh characters.

Fixed several chests that weren't giving out loot on the "solo" setting.

Common collectables stack sizes increased to 99.

When a citizen of Stormreach is pleased with the work you have done on his or her behalf and they offer you a wand as a reward, that wand will always be fully charged.

Metal shields now appear in a variety of different colors. This change is retroactive – perhaps YOUR shield is a new color!

Several potions that only partially applied their spell effects have been fixed. These include Aid (adds Bless effect), Protection from Evil (adds immunity to Charms and Compulsions), Lesser Restoration (dispels effects that reduce statistics like Ray of Enfeeblement), Remove Fear (removes fear effects and grants a bonus to saving throws vs Fear), and Neutralize Poison (adds Poison Immunity for 7 minutes).

Wizards and Sorcerers now have a greater chance to receive Damage Amplification modified weapons as part of NPC-based quest rewards.

The Wayward Lobster and the Leaky Dinghy have both received shipments of very high quality food and drink. Both taverns now serve the full selection of food and drinks available in other taverns.

The Scrolls for Death Ward and Ball Lightning have been added to the game.

We have added Immunity special effects to treasure effects (for example, Proof against Poison).

The Kundarak Warding Shield’s minimum level requirement has changed from level 2 to level 10 for shields looted (shields looted before this change still have the old requirement).

Light Hammers now get the benefits of Weapon Finesse Feat.

Fixed a bug causing some bracers to be created without their intended effects.

Damage Amplification effects that enhance Repair spells now function correctly. This includes the amplification effects that affect all spell types.

Race restricted items can now be restricted to several races (i.e. you must be a dwarf OR a human to use the item). Some items already in your inventory might gain access to a second race. If you own an item which has a race restriction and at some point in the past the race restriction changed, it should now have a multi-race restriction on it, and any race that could ever use it in the past will now be able to use it.

Corrected a text error with the tooltip for Greater Bane items that improperly stated that Greater Bane was a +2 bonus instead of a +4 bonus.

Fixed a display error in the description text for mithral armor where the text stated that mithral armor was a medium armor instead of a light armor. This was a text error only and will not change performance.

All "elf only" items are now "elf and drow only" items.

Spells

New Spells

Both players and monsters have been granted several new spells for the Twilight Forge Module. Players now have access to:

Niac's Cold Ray

Knock

Dimension Door

Wall of Fire

Teleport

Monsters can now cast…well, you'll find out soon enough.

General

We have changed the way that sorcerer's “Resist Energy” and “Protection from Energy” spell lines work. Sorcerers no longer need to learn element-specific “Resist Energy: X” and “Protection from Energy: X” in order to be able to cast that specific element. Instead, sorcerers can simply learn the new spell “Resist Energy” and choose which element they would like at casting time. The next time you log in all of your element-specific “Resist Energy” and “Protection from Energy” spells will be removed from your spell books. If you had learned any “Resist Energy” spells previously, you will automatically learn the new “Resist Energy” spell. The same applies to the “Protection from Energy” spell line. On the other hand, if you find yourself missing spells, (for example because you already knew both “Resist Energy: Sonic” and “Resist Energy: Cold,”) you will receive an alert every time you log in instructing you to seek out a sorcerer trainer to use the spell exchange to pick out your new spell(s). In this case, since it involves a change we made to spells, you will not be required to pay for the spell, nor will it affect your spell exchange timer.

We have changed the way “Over Time” spells and effects work. The intervals will be closer together (i.e., 2 seconds instead of 6 seconds), but will do less damage/benefit during each interval. There has been no change to the total amount of damage/benefit, this is purely a change to how the damage/benefit is spread out over time. This change also applies to the way lava does damage over time.

Alerts for "Missing Spell Component" now list what the missing component is.

The dwarven racial save bonus against magic effects works against bestow curse.

Fixed a problem where holy smite was not stunning all evil creatures.

The Phantasmal Killer spell now includes a will save to disbelieve and completely negate the effects (per Player’s Handbook 3.5 rules).

Icestorm no longer hits you for extra damage (you will be hit once for cold damage and once for bludgeon damage, but previously you were being hit twice by both.)

Lightning bolt and flaming sphere would periodically hit targets more than once. This issue has been fixed.

The Divine Power spell applies the correct amount of temporary hit points to its target.

Fixed the Bard song “Inspire Greatness” and the spell “Greater Heroism” so that the greatness effects no longer ends prematurely when the bonus temporary hit points are used up.

Have you been unimpressed by the look and power of Melf’s Acid Arrow? Well the acid arrow is now bigger, stronger, and brighter! Additionally, Melf’s acid arrow no longer invokes spell resistance.

The Flame Arrow spell will not fail due to spell resistance.

Jump spell bonus now increases to 20 at 5th level and 30 at 9th level (however players will see no improvement after obtaining a jump skill of 40.)

The "doom" spell now properly gives you a -2 to your attack rolls (as per D&D rules).

Having the benefit "Improved Heightening" will no longer give a discount to spells that are already maximum level (you can cast).

Fixed an issue where when hit by multiple blindness spells, all of the spells would end as soon as the first spell expired. Now your full sight won’t be restored until the final blindness effect has ended.

The poison spell will now show immunity effects if cast on an immune target.

When you resist a spell due to an item of spell resistance, feedback will be sent to the combat chat tab.

Enhancements

New Enhancements

Twilight Forge introduces many new enhancements (purchased with action points) that will let you further customize and specialize your characters. In order to give players who are level 10 the opportunity to swap out their old enhancements in favor of the new enhancements we have implemented a new experience system for level-capped players. Once you achieve level 10 you begin earning experience points towards an action point token. This token gives you the ability to visit a trainer and trade in one of your current enhancements for a new one. Every time you gain 20,000 points worth of action point experience, you gain a new token. The action point tokens will go away when you level up, just like normal action points. So, when the level cap goes up, spend your remaining action point tokens to rearrange your benefits, then simply gain 1XP and talk to a trainer to get to level 11. (It is important to note that the action point experience gives you the ability to trade in one of your four enhancements for a new one - it does not give you additional enhancements on top of the four, nor can you stockpile more than four action point tokens - just like regular action points.)

New enhancements have been added for

Spellcasters

Rogues

Part 1

Part 2

Barbarians

Rangers

Fighters

Dwarves

Part 1

Part 2

Elves

General

Warforged with Improved Fortification can no longer be healed, even if they take the "Healer's Friend" enhancement (they still can be repaired however).

Feats & Skills

The upper limit of 40 on skills has been removed (on all skills except jump).

The bard "Fascinate" ability now works when you have nothing targeted but valid targets are in range.

Shout will no longer be able to deafen monsters.

Disable Device, Open Lock, and Search skills are now usable while swimming underwater.

Feats with a prerequisite described as a total level are working properly for multiclassed individuals (for example, previously a Warforged Fighter 1/Cleric 1/Sorcerer 1 could not take feats that required "Warforged, Level 3".)

The tooltip for feats will now display how many times you have acquired the feat if you have acquired it more then once.

The tooltip for "Sneak Attack" now displays how much extra damage you cause when you perform a sneak attack.

Fixed a display error that was causing the damage numbers over your target's head to sometimes be incorrect when a sneak attack was performed while the precision attack feat was active.

Fixed a display issue where the damage over time component of Slicing Blow wasn’t displaying properly.

Combat

Repeating crossbow users rejoice, the machinegun issue is gone.

Two-handed weapons receive the proper bonuses on later attacks in a combo.

Fixed a bug where human males didn't cause damage when they attempted to attack while sneaking with a shield.

If you die underwater and someone casts raise dead or similar on you, your breath meter will reappear.

The Knockdown icon is now used when knocked down, rather than the alert icon.

Quests

General

Party members may not leave the party while in a dungeon. They must first recall to a public space.

Any open conversations are closed when a player recalls out to ensure neither the player nor the NPC get locked.

Attempting to abandon a story arc quest alerts the player that they are abandoning multiple quests and lists these quests.

When running an adventure on solo for the first time, the XP panel incorrectly said "first time completing on elite". This has been fixed to say "first time completing on solo". This was a text error only - the first time bonuses for solo and elite were otherwise working properly.

Bonebite Hideout

The ogre's kobold friends always arrive to help defend him.

Catacombs

Changes to Archbishop Dryden:

Dryden now completes quests in the Catacombs arc (and allow players to choose rewards) before bestowing the next quest in the arc.

Reminders have been added to Dryden to help groups remember to complete and advance their Catacombs quests. This should help prevent groups of players working their way through the Catacombs from accidentally getting "out of synch."

Archbishop Dryden no longer fights players in the "Seek Dryden's Counsel" adventure. Players who are ready to confront Dryden are directed to face him in the "Endgame" adventure. Additionally, in "Endgame," Dryden only speaks to players who are on the correct quest phase to confront him.

Caverns of Korromar

The Ability score DCs required to complete certain objectives in Caverns of Korromar have been removed. Characters of all classes are able to complete the main objective.

A chest has had its loot table adjusted upwards.

You will now need to find a key to access a chest that was previously unlocked.

Delera's Tomb

The Skeleton Arcii, located near the omaren pugilist, should no longer respawn.

Gambler's Den

The boss no longer respawns.

You can no longer shoot through the gate.

Haunted Library

Several chests have had their loot adjusted upwards.

Jungle of Khyber

The requirement for the intelligence runes leading to the beholder area has been lowered from 16 to 14.

Kobold's Den

The prisoners in "Rescuing Arlos" will not respawn.

Quickfoot Hideout

A rest shrine has been added.

Ruins of Threnal

A particularly nasty colony of glass spider queens has moved in to the South Threnal caves and, in the process, chased away many of the slimes that had been residing there.

The beholder objective has been clarified to indicate the beholder in the caves.

The objectives for acquiring the silver and jeweled keys has changed to opening the doors requiring those keys. Each door has a lockpick skill set on it. A party with a talented rogue may advance by picking those doors, a party without may advance by finding the keys.

Players can no longer use the Rest Shrine doors to "trap" the NPCs they are escorting in the Library.

The Scorched Caverns

The earth elementals no longer respawn.

Summoned Fire Elementals will not regenerate their health quite as quickly. They also respawn at a reduced rate.

One chest has been moved and another added to increase the reward for completing the dungeon.

Added a rest shrine.

Players are no longer unable to complete the quest if they get trapped and killed between fire barriers.

The DM is now more descriptive and may offer additional clues to those who are skillful enough.

Sharpwood's Warehouse

You must complete all objectives in order to finish the quest.

Sorrowdusk Island

Hragg now has a quest chalice above his head when appropriate.

The hellhound encounter no longer respawns.

The Cultist encounter no longer respawns.

Fane of the Six

Sear no longer respawns.

Grey Moons Den

Hammerfist no longer counts towards the kill trolls objective.

The trolls have tinkered with the traps on the bridge and found a way to become immune to their damage.

Stormcleave Outpost

Killing 50 minions is now a required objective

Adventurers should be advised that the Fire Giant Necromancer Pious has upgraded his undead escort.

Tangleroot Gorge

Tangleroot Gorge-specific collectables now list number and collector in their description.

Tear of Dhakaan

Karnat Thaar has summoned one of his warriors from Darguun. Traagus has joined him outside of the entrance to the Arzag-Khor Sewers. If you bring pieces of the Tear of Dhakaan to Traagus he will reward you with 100 gold per shard.

The Warmage will always spawn.

Karnat Thaar will now have the appropriate quest chalices over his head.

Tempest Spine

An optional quest has been adjusted so that the chest will only appear once you have killed the mini-boss.

Tharashk Arena

Monster names have changed to indicate which team they are on.

Three-Barrel Cove

Fixed a bug where both Red Tom and Rosie the Jinx weren’t giving players the option to repeat their quests.

Vault of Night

Wavecrest Tavern

When Jacoby dies his chest drops closer towards the exit instead of dropping where he fell.

Xorian Cipher

An optional quest rune previously surrounded by a force field has moved and the force field was removed.

Monsters

The "no dice shown when attacking a fire reaver" bug should be fixed; it caused an intermittent problem (with all monsters, but particularly noticeable with fire reavers and ice flensers) where you would make a melee swing and see no dice, combat chat, or damage. Additionally, we have made some adjustments to Fleshrender's, Ice Flenser's, and Fire Reaver's AI.

All enemy trip and knockdown attacks (including Grease) now give the player a reflex save attempt every 2 seconds for the duration of the knockdown (this will most likely be changing in the future).

The alchemist fire thrown by kobolds now has a reflex save for half damage instead of having the regular to-hit roll.

Monster Drow will not be caught sleeping, because elves do not sleep.

Fire elementals properly dissipate after death.

We have adjusted several monsters’ vulnerability to light. Ghouls, wights, skeletons and slimes should no longer take extra damage from light. On the other hand, Vampires are now more vulnerable to light.

Clay Golems can bestow cursed wounds. Players with a cursed wound will not be able to be healed by cure spells until they rest or have the curse removed.

Many humanoid enemies now use feats and special attacks along with their standard attacks. These include, but are not limited to, Stunning Blow, Trip, Hamstring, and Sunder.

Velah the Dragon is now immune to blindness.

The Guardian of the Seal of Shan-to-Kor is less likely to walk on top of people (float) during combat.

A spell that was artificially lowering trolls’ resistance to poison has worn off. All trolls have regained their natural level of poison immunity. The spell also seemed to be impacting the strength and power of trolls and ogres living in the harder versions of dungeons.

When a wraith kills something that is already undead or was never living (i.e., a construct), it will not spawn a new wraith.

Storm Giant's arrows no longer disappear before being fired, and also now fire from their bow.

The troglodytes, kobolds, and hobgoblins have been practicing their spell casting. After many hours of study they are now capable of casting the icestorm spell with the same skill that all the other monsters do. (Icestorm now has the proper visual effects for these monsters).

Aligned weapon damage is no longer reduced by iron golems (i.e., pure-good/adamantine weapons will work because it's adamantine, not be ignored because it's good).

Dead monster can no longer hear you.

Fixed a problem with the animation for tripped/knocked down monsters. This was an animation issue only.

Monsters are less likely to look like they are "moonwalking."

NPCs

The Brothers and Sisters of the Silver Flame stationed in Taverns to resurrect fallen heroes will now also cast several curative spells for a small donation to the Church. The spells available are Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Remove Blindness (if you can find your way to the tavern), Restoration and Heal. Those adventurers the Church of the Silver Flame feel are "Reclaimed" will be given a significant discount.

Many dungeon-based NPCs now only converse with one player at a time. This alleviates the problem where a number of quest NPCs toggle a door or item twice in succession due to multiple conversations taking place simultaneously.

All vendors in House Jorasco once again give price discounts for finishing the Delera's Tomb storyquest.

After a run-in with the Coin Lords and a short stay in the dungeons, Henda Boulderbreaker will now actually pay you if you win against her in gambling.

After a prolonged journey abroad, Brother Heathcote has returned to the Anvilfire Inn.

Collectors Yannick Drumdoon and Davyd Turner have switched their rewards.

Other

There were three fixes in the Thursday Night update:

First, there was a code change to prevent the server crashes we were experiencing on a few of the live worlds.

Second, several fixes to the experience point panel to correct the display and xp calculation issues that were reported. The experience rewards are being calculated correctly and the xp panel should correctly reflect that.

Third, the stacking issue with three returning weapons has been fixed on the server-side so that they are now Bind on Acquire and have stacks of only 1. Since this is only a server-side fix, the game clients will display them as their old stack numbers but they will function as if the stack count was 1. If you find that you can't split a stack of 50 of a returning weapon, that is the correct behavior since the server thinks there's only one in the stack. A future patch will fix this display issue.

Dungeons & Dragons Online® interactive video game (c) 2017 Standing Stone Games LLC. All other elements (c) 2017 HASBRO, Inc. Standing Stone Games and the Standing Stone Games logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Standing Stone Games LLC. Dungeons & Dragons Online and Wizards of the Coast and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC and are used with permission. HASBRO and its logo are trademarks of HASBRO, Inc. and are used with permission.